Measurement of diffractive production of D*+- (2010) mesons in deep inelastic scattering at HERA

Abstract Diffractive production of D ∗± (2010) mesons in deep inelastic scattering has been measured with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 44.3 pb −1 . Diffractive charm production is identified by the presence of a large rapidity gap in the final state of events in which a D ∗± (2010) meson is reconstructed in the decay channel D ∗+ →(D 0 →K − π + )π + s (+ charge conjugate). Differential cross sections when compared with theoretical predictions indicate the importance of gluons in such diffractive interactions.